Mental health services required after disasters: Learning from the lasting effects of disasters

Extent: 13p.Disasters test civil administrations’ and health services’ capacity to act in a flexible but well-coordinated manner because each disaster is unique and poses unusual challenges. The health services required differ markedly according to the nature of the disaster and the geographical spread of those affected. Epidemiology has shown that services need to be equipped to deal with major depressive disorder and grief, not just posttraumatic stress disorder, and not only for victims of the disaster itself but also the emergency service workers. The challenge is for specialist advisers to respect and understand the existing health care and support networks of those affected while also recognizing their limitations. In the initial aftermath of these events, a great deal of effort goes into the development of early support systems but the longer term needs of these populations are often underestimated. These services need to be structured, taking into account the pre-existing psychiatric morbidity within the community. Disasters are an opportunity for improving services for patients with posttraumatic psychopathology in general but can later be utilized for improving services for victims of more common traumas in modern society, such as accidents and interpersonal violence.A. C. McFarlane and Richard William

Study of alternate optical and fine guidance sensor designs for the space infrared telescope facility (SIRTF)

A unique optical design was developed that compensates for the coma degraded images caused by field chopping in SIRTF. The conic constants of a Cassegrain telescope were altered to compensate for the coma induced by the secondary mirror tilt. The modulation transfer function is essentially independent of secondary mirror tilt, and diffraction limited image quality is maintained over a several arcminute field during chopping. With an untilted secondary mirror, the coma compensated (CC) design has a smaller field than the unchopped Ritchey-Chretien design; but use of relay optics, such as the inverted Cassegrain design developed for the fine guidance sensor (FGS), can increase the CC telescope's field size. A reactionless secondary mirror chopper mechanism that uses superconducting magnets was studied. The heart producing elements are confined to a reaction plate that is not directly viewed by the IR focal plane. A design was also developed for a low moment of inertia, reticulated HIP beryllium secondary mirror consistent with blank fabrication technology and optical finishing requirements

The Role of Futureproofing in the Management of Infrastructural Assets

Ensuring long-term value from infrastructure is essential for a sustainable economy. In this context, futureproofing involves addressing two broad issues: i. Ensuring the ability of infrastructure to be resilient to unexpected or uncontrollable events e.g. extreme weather events; and ii. Ensuring the ability to adapt to required changes in structure and / or operations of the infrastructure in the future e.g. expansion of capacity, change in usage mode or volumes. Increasingly, in their respective roles, infrastructure designers/builders and owners/operators are being required to develop strategies for futureproofing as part of the life cycle planning for key assets and systems that make up infrastructure. In this paper, we report on a preliminary set of studies aimed at exploring the following issues related to infrastructure / infrastructure systems: • What is intended by the futureproofing of infrastructural assets? • Why and when to futureproof critical infrastructure? • How can infrastructure assets and systems be prepared for uncertain futures? • How can futureproofing be incorporated into asset management practice? In order to seek answers to the above questions, the Cambridge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction (CSIC) has conducted two industrial workshops bringing together leading practitioners in the UK infrastructure and construction sectors, along with government policy makers. This paper provides an initial summary of the findings from the workshops (part presentation, part working sessions), and proposes a simple framework for linking futureproofing into broader asset management considerations. To begin, an overview of futureproofing and motivate the need for futureproofing infrastructure assets is provided. Following this, an approach to futureproofing infrastructure portfolios is presented that organisations in the infrastructure sector can use. Key barriers to futureproofing are also presented before examining the ISO 55001 asset management standard to highlight the interplay between futureproofing and infrastructural asset management. Finally, different ways by which an effective futureproofing strategy can enhance the value of infrastructure are examined

Guano

This is an encyclopedia article

The Ninth Circuit Lands a Perfect 10 Applying Copyright Law to the Internet

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued three landmark decisions in 2007 that addressed how copyright protections apply to images that can be accessed over the Internet. Internet publisher Perfect 10 initiated these lawsuits based on allegations that its registered copyrights were infringed when unauthorized copies of its photographs appeared on third-party websites where they could be viewed, downloaded, and purchased without payment to Perfect 10. This Article briefly summarizes the facts of these three cases, explains the central holdings of each decision, and then concludes with a discussion of the collective impact that the three decisions have on enforcement of copyrights in the Internet context and the policy reasons supporting the court\u27s decisions

Three Eras in Policy Analysis: Review of Radin’s “Beyond Machiavelli: Policy Analysis Reaches Midlife”

Policy Analysis as a systematized body of knowledge or field of study has been defined in several ways. For example, Mayer, Els van Daalen, and Bots (n.d.) define Policy Analysis as a multi-faceted field in which a variety of different activities and ambitions have found a place; as a broad and versatile field of applied policy research and advice, where a multitude of perspectives and methods have developed. Vaitsman, Lobato, and Ribeiro (2013), state that policy analysis refers to either an interdisciplinary or applied field within the social sciences dealing with all of the activities within a planning system and which provides information for policy decision-makers in administrative and political systems. Policy analysis simply defines the problem and the goals, examines the arguments, and analyzes implementation of the policy regarding issues, usually issues involving the intermingling perspectives, rights, responsibilities and interests of stakeholders. There are many books written on Policy Analysis and the policy process. Among them is a notable reader written by Beryl A. Radin, a faculty in the Georgetown Public Policy Institute and McCourt School of Public Policy at George Washington University. This book is the second in her series chronicling the practice and systematization of Public Policy, and titled, Beyond Machiavelli: Policy Analysis Reaches Midlife (2013), the first being Beyond Machiavelli: Policy Analysis Reaches Midlife (2004). In the work under review, the author provides an overview of Radin’s book and looks at the three fictional persons that Radin develops, and explains how these three persons represent different ways of doing policy analysis.  The author also critiques Radin’s model by looking at the strengths and weaknesses of each different approach. In the final analysis, the author deliberates on which model represents the best way to doing policy analysis with an understanding that each has its merits

Liverpool University Expedition to Jamaica

During summer 1977, five members of the Liverpool University Potholing Club spent six weeks working and exploring in the caves of Jamaica. The team consisted of Don McFarlane, John Dye, Malcolm Macduff, Mike Roger and Barry Williams, all of whom contributed to this report. The expedition base was at Troy, where the villagers are owed a debt of gratitude for their hospitality. This placed the expedition in the heart of the cave region, and a number of new caves and shafts were discovered and explored. The main discovery was the Still Waters Cave, located near Accompong, where 11,800 feet of passages were explored during the second half of the stay in Jamaica. Studies were carried out not only in the cockpit karst around Troy, but also in the Hellshire Hills and Portland Ridge karsts on the south coast of the island. In addition, a flying visit was paid to the John Crow Mountains near the eastern end of the island. A single stalactite adorned cave (Hog House Hole at Map Ref. 763 445) was discovered. Though only 30 feet long, this is significant, as it is one of the very few caves known in the John Crow Mountains, even though they consist of massive limestone in a high relief terrain with a high rainfall

The Species-Genus Relationship in Antillean Bat Communities

The ratio of the number of species to the number of genera in an island community has long been recognised as a potential proxy indicator of competitive interaction. An analysis of this relationship in the bat fauna of the Antillean archipelago demonstrates that the observed species-genus ratios are significantly depressed below null-model expectations, and that the magnitude of this depression is inversely proportional to the log of the appropriate island area. These observations are consistent with the hypothesis that interspecific competition may play an important role in structuring Antillean bat communities

The Strategic Importance of Customer Value

This paper examines the importance of customer value as a strategic approach to doing business in the 21st century hypercompetitive marketplace and marketspace. The author examines the customer value theory of Professor Art Weinstein as a valid and plausible conceptual framework for strategically positioning an organization through market orientation to design and deliver superior customer value as a competitive advantage. Citing examples of new economy companies that have effectively propelled themselves to the forefront of the competition through the delivery of superior customer value, the author argues that customers are not simply just consumers or buyers of goods and services, but must be seen more like business partners. Furthermore, the author examines the role that customer service and value creation play in the development of competitive advantage and market positions by examining the differences between market driving and market driven companies relative to the customer value concept and theory. Two important frameworks proposed by Weinstein in his customer value theory are used as the framework for this paper to communicate the strategic importance of customer value: the Customer Value Funnel (CVF) and the SQIP (Service, Quality, Image, Price) Approach

Jamaican Cave Vertebrates

Limestone caves in the tropics are typically associated with a more diverse assemblage of vertebrates than are caves in temperate regions. Chapman [87] for example, has reported 37 species from the caves of Gunung Mulu National Park, Sarawak, whereas Bailey [43] lists only 13 for the equally cavernicolous Guadeloupe Mountains National Park, New Mexico, USA. Twenty-eight vertebrate species have been recorded from Jamaican caves. The relative importance of the five Classes differ in these three areas as shown in Table 1 (overleaf)